Dear D:

You wrote:

> I believe Churchill’s correction to his sentence that ended in a
> prepostion was incorrect. “Up with” is part of the verb “put up with”.
> There is a class of verbs that are constructed of a verb and a word (in
> this case two) that is usually used as a preposition. The way to
> distinguish them is through their meaning. The term “put up with” does not
> mean “place in a higher location with” I also think the point of the rule
> is not that the object of the preposition preceeds the prepostion but that
> the prepostiton has no object. Usually when a sentence ends in a
> preposition the inferred obect is already the object of the verb. Sayin
> “with which” creates a word that can act as the object of the prepostiton.
> For example, “I like the town I come from.” Where is the object of the
> prepostiton, “from”? “Town” is the object of the verb.
> I suppose one could say, “I like the town which I came from.” This would
> still violate the “rule” but not its spirit.

The whole thing is bogus. If you check our newsletters online, you’ll see that we have received more correspondence on this “rule” than anything. The most striking thing is that no one follows it. The few nineteenth century grammar texts that mentioned it did so in the way we stated. It has been a while, but I believe Linsley was one such text.

Here are a couple of our newletters that dealt with questions people had on this:
https://www.englishplus.com/news/news0201.htm
and
https://www.englishplus.com/news/news0401.htm

> Another sentence that bothers me is, “Where is my car at?” It is redundant
> to use “where” and “at” together.
>
Yes, we mention this on our page entitled “At after Where.”
>
> A few more:
> talk to/speak with

Interesting, but probably not a big issue with most people. Most people
understand the difference between “to” and “with.”

> I wish I was/I wish I were (use of subjunctive mood)
>
We have a fairly detailed page on the Subjunctive Mood.

Thank you for your thoughts.